Delhi Archives – Paan, Around Town

A foreign art critic visiting Delhi’s Connaught Place may be forgiven for thinking its red-splattered corridors are a form of abstract expression. Although the dirty white pillars of the colonial-era arcade were repainted in time for the 2010 Commonwealth Games, every column is again stained blood red.

If you are looking for a culprit, it’s paan, the edible betel leaf stuffed with supari (betel nut), tobacco (optional), lime paste, catechu and other piquant flavours. The oozing liquid fills up the mouth, and is either swallowed or—as is evident across the city—spit out. In Connaught Place’s F-Block, the wall that was temporarily white after the hasty makeover in 2010 is marked with the red saliva-ridden remnants of paan.

The autorickshaw driver, who is spitting out a mouthful of red fluid at a traffic light on Kasturba Gandhi Marg, sits at one end of Delhi’s paan chain. The source of the operation is Naya Bans bazaar, behind Fatehpuri Masjid in the Walled City, which supplies betel leaf to the entire Capital.

While it also has a wholesale centre for spices, tea and matchboxes, the bazaar is the hub for paan traders: some dealing in leaves; others in supari. In their stores, the big-bellied traders sit beside locked tijoris (steel chests). The floors have dozens of baskets filled with leaves; rats run from one basket to another.

Three times a week, trains chug in carrying the cargo from Orissa, Bengal, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. The traders purchase on a commission basis; each basket, it is reckoned, contains 1,000 leaves. Like any precious commodity, the price fluctuates weekly, depending on the supply.

Clickhere to read the rest of this article originally published on The Delhi Walla in January 2012.

Ad Enquiries

Contact mayankaustensoofi@gmail.com for ad enquiries.

2 Responses

Akhlesh · April 5, 2015 at 11:07:04 · →

Terrible stuff.

JASBIR CHATTERJEE · April 5, 2015 at 14:20:38 · →

The real culprit is not the paan; it is bad civic sense and indiscipline on the part of paan chewers. When the ‘Swach Bharat Abhiyan’ was first launched, it did have some impact, especially on the Modi fans. But the spirit seems to be petering off. Yes, someone needs to add fuel to this fire. Who will do it remains to be seen. You have added a teaspoonful…

On The Delhi Walla

The blogger is a devotee of Sufi Saint Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya and Author Arundhati Roy

The Caravan

“The Delhi Walla is one of the city’s best-known flâneurs.”

Time Out Delhi

“The Delhi Walla is a one-man encyclopedia of the city.”

The Guardian

“The Delhi Walla is a celebration of the food, culture and books of India’s capital.”

Biography of The Delhi Walla

Since 2007, Mayank Austen Soofi has been collecting hundreds of stories taking place in Delhi, through writing and photography, for his acclaimed website The Delhi Walla. Every day, Mayank walks around the city with his camera and notebook to track down the part of extraordinary that exists in the seemingly mundane aspects of urban lives. By exploring and documenting the streets, buildings, houses, cuisines, traditions and people of Delhi, his work is also an attempt to give the megalopolis an intimate voice, and to capture the passing of time in this otherwise restlessly changing city.

Mayank is also a daily columnist for Hindustan Times newspaper, and the author of ‘Nobody Can Love You More: Life in Delhi’s Red Light District’ (published by Penguin) and the four-volume ‘The Delhi Walla’ guidebooks (HarperCollins).